Serial child killer confesses to kidnap and murder of boy, 16, in 1992 and reveals he ‘dumped body in 58-foot-deep lake’

Authorities announced today that Lewis S. Lent Jr. has admitted to the 1992 slaying of Jamie Lusher, 16

He described how he abducted the boy while he was bicycling to a relative’s home, murdered him then dumped his remains in a pond in Becket, Massachusetts

Divers will begin searching for any trace of the boy on Tuesday

Killer: Lewis Lent, pictured in 1997, has confessed to the slaying of Jamie Lusher, 16, in 1992

A child serial killer has confessed to murdering a 16-year-old boy 21 years ago and dumping his remains in a 58-foot deep lake.

Lewis S. Lent Jr., who is serving a life sentence for a separate murder conviction, has described step-by-step how he kidnapped Jamie Lusher from a street in Westfield, Massachusetts on November 2, 1992, and cut short his young life before getting rid of the body in Greenwater Pond in nearby Becket.

Police divers from Massachusetts and New York will begin searching for the teen’s remains in the 80 acre pond tomorrow, hoping to give his family closure in the cold case.

‘To this day, when I see a kid, a 16-year-old kid on a bike with black hair, I will instinctively look,’ the victim’s father, James Lusher, told reporters today, according to the Boston Globe. ‘My closure is finding my son.’

Hampden District Attorney Mark Mastroianni, Berkshire District Attorney David Capeless, State Police Colonel Timothy Alben and Westfield Police Captain Michael McCabe said in a joint press conference that Lent confessed to the killing in return for not being prosecuted for the crime.

Lent was arrested and charged in January 1994 with kidnapping and assaulting Rebecca Savarese, 12, of Pittsfield. She managed to escaped and alert police. During three days of questioning, Lent confessed to the attempted abduction as well as to two child murders.

He was convicted in the 1990 kidnapping and murder of James Bernardo, 12, of Pittsfield. He dumped the child’s body in the woods about 250 miles from the town.

He also pleaded guilty in New York to the kidnapping and murder of Sara Anne Wood, 12, of Frankfort, New York in 1993. But her remains have never been recovered, despite him drawing a crude map for investigators showing where he supposedly dumped the body.

Mastroianni added at the press conference that Lent was also suspected in other unsolved crimes, despite being behind bars since the 1990s.

‘Lent is someone who law enforcement here and in other places is very interested in,’ he said. ‘He is a subject that is on the radar for other cases. This information and the new information gathered from Lewis Lent has reinvigorated investigations.’

Jamie Lusher’s father said that while Lent obviously dumped his son’s body in the pond to hide the evidence of his crime, his choice of where he laid the 16-year-old to rest offered some peace to the family.

‘Unwittingly, Lewis Lent put my son where he loved to be — he loved the mountains,’ Lusher said. ‘So, if in fact they never find anything, he’s where he loved to be.’

He added that closure was finding his son and that he wasn’t bothered about Lent being prosecuted in the killing.

‘I couldn’t care less what happens to Lewis Lent,’ he said. ‘He can rot in hell, I don’t care.’

The boy’s sister, Jennifer Nowak, agreed.

‘There is no closure unless we have the person,’ she said. ‘We don’t have anything. We’ve never had anything.’